Newsletter. Golden Valley Lodge #616. Upcoming Events. Next meeting: Thursday, October 9, 2014

Transcription

1 October 2014 Golden Valley Lodge #616 Newsletter Upcoming Events We will be voting on a Fall Outing at the next meeting. Our GVL November meeting is the fourth Thursday. The application deadline for the District Scholarships is December 10. Golden Valley Lodge Christmas Party/Lucia Program is Saturday, December 20th at Sons of Norway Hall -- see attached for more information. SACA s installation dinner is planned for on January 25, Next meeting: Thursday, October 9, 2014 Golden Valley Lodge #616 Vasa Order of America Mailing Address: Friar St. Van Nuys CA info@goldenvalleylodge.org

2 Buffet Buzz: GVL Happenings Our dinner team from the September meeting is pictured on the right. Mona Steffen, Steve Tabanelli, Birgitta Clark, Britt Potter, and Andrea Tabanelli. Pictured below them are the beautiful table centerpieces that were in the Opportunity Drawing. If you were lucky enough to win one, it was hand-painted by Mona Steffen in English and Swedish. Christmas Donations! This is your chance to clean out your closets and cupboards. We need your donations, regifts, and white elephants for the Christmas party! Please bring them to the next two meetings! Membership Update Delphine is in charge of membership renewals. Memberships for 2014 that are not paid by the end of 2014 will be closed. She has a new address that is different than the latest directory, so please make a note: Delphine Trowbridge Stafford Canyon Rd., Unit B, Stevenson Ranch, Phone Happy October Birthday! Gun Olin 2nd Conny Klintare 13th Monica Carabas 2nd Daga-Karin Lindquist 15th Yvonne Klintare 5th Ingela Sorensson 15th Anneli Anderson 5th Stephen Osman 16th Larry Polutanovich 7th Ann Heinstedt 16th Delphine Trowbridge 7th Bertil Ohlsson 17th Wenche Eklund 8th Katarina Holstein 24th Nils Possecker 8th Gunvor Sabo 25th Lillemo Possecker 10th Brad Richards 25th Heidi Klintare 12th Rickard Siwerson 26th If you have any pictures or stories to share, please send them to laurietaylor@hotmail.com!

3 Our September Return Our special guest, Kin Lindgren, President of Vasa Park Association. Kerstin Wendt and her son Daniel If you have any pictures or stories to share, please send them to

4 Cultural Exchange If you missed our last meeting, you missed a great cultural exchange. Two of the teenagers that attended Sojlunden, Jason Trowbridge and Lars Heinstedt, gave a very entertaining accounting of their two week trip. It was clear that they had a wonderful time! They told stories about going in the sauna until they were soaked with sweat and then jumping in the cold lake. I, personally, enjoyed that story because my grandfather used to tell the same story! They also told of doing everything from learning to sail to surviving wilderness training -- in a foreign language. After Jason and Lars gave their accounting of Sweden in Minnesota, Isabella Muscarella told us about growing up in Lapland where temperatures could reach - 30 C (-22 F). It was unbelievably cold! The rugs would freeze to the floor. Walking to school, they didn t want to close their eyes because their eyes would freeze together! The strangest thing about growing up in such a cold environment was they just didn t get sick!

5 Swedish News and Culture Corner The Origin of Halloween in Sweden With the rise of Christianity, the heathen Samhain came to be called Hallowmas, or All Saints Day, to commemorate the souls of the dead who had been canonised that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween, All Hallows Eve. The pumpkin replaced the turnip and the occasion was celebrated with trick or treat and special parades. In the 1990s, Halloween became established in Sweden, where it is mainly celebrated in macabre fashion by children and young people. Samhain was a Celtic harvest festival marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter labors. That night was regarded as a magical time of transition, when the dead called on the living and various supernatural creatures were afoot. People lit fires, dressed up and went round begging from door to door (trick or treat). They carved faces in turnips and lit them inside with candles. These glowing vegetables were supposed to represent the wandering soul of Jack the Blacksmith and were called Jack O Lanterns. They go to costume parties and ghost parties, light lanterns and venture forth into the streets to scare the life out of the neighborhood. Many pubs and restaurants stage Halloween parties and decorate their premises with fearsome attributes. Halloween has come to stay. On the island of Öland in the southern Baltic Sea, the arrival of Halloween has led to an upswing in pumpkin growing, and the giant fruits are now quite readily available. Halloween was imported into the US by Irish immigrants in the 1840s and became a popular festivity here. Jack the Blacksmith We know that an uncut pumpkin is just that, a pumpkin, but a pumpkin that has been cut is a Jack O Lantern. Legend has it that an Irish blacksmith called Jack shared drinks with the Devil on a Halloween night. Jack was an evil and stingy man, but he was also very clever, and he knew that the Devil had come to claim his soul. So, he quickly devised a plan. When it came to paying the bartender, Jack told the Devil, You can take any form you wish; just change yourself into a silver coin, let me use you to pay for the drinks, and then you can change yourself back and take my soul. The Devil agreed and changed himself into a silver coin. Jack, however, quickly put the coin in his pocket where he also kept a little silver Cross. The Devil wasn t able to change back to his original form, so Jack offered him a deal, If you leave me alone for 10 years, I ll set you free. The Devil had no choice but to agree. Ten years later, the Devil came back to claim Jack s soul. Okay, you can have my soul now, Jack said, Could you just climb that apple tree first and give me an apple? The Devil thought he had nothing to lose and climbed the apple tree, but Jack quickly pulled out his knife and carved a Cross in the trunk of the tree. Thus the Devil wasn t able to come back down again, and Jack offered him another deal, If you promise never to come back to claim my soul, I ll set you free. Again, the Devil had no choice but to agree, and he never came back to claim Jack s soul. Many years later, Jack finally died. When he went to Heaven, he was denied entrance, because he had been so evil and stingy all his life. Then Jack went to Hell, but, as he had tricked the Devil, he wasn t allowed to stay there either. Instead, the Devil sent Jack back to earth and gave him a burning coal as a light to guide him. Jack placed the piece of coal inside a turnip, and went back to earth, where, ever since, he has been wandering alone in the darkness. Jack and his lantern became the symbol of a lost or damned soul. To scare these souls away on Halloween, people in Ireland carved or painted faces on turnips and placed them in windows or doorways. In America, Irish immigrants discovered that turnips were hard to get. So they started to make their lanterns out of pumpkins, a fruit native to America.

6 District Scholarship Update The application deadline for the District Scholarships is December 10. The application forms can be downloaded from: The District Scholarships include the Sjolunden Camp award. Last year our Lodge awarded scholarships to the Sjolunden Camp also (in addition to our academic awards) and we are likely to do the same this year. Applicants for these awards must be members of our Lodge. Golden Valley Lodge, #616 Vasa Order of America Friar St. Van Nuys, CA We recommend our interested youngsters to first send their applications to our District Scholarship Committee (Mary Wright or Siv SwanPierson) before their deadline (Dec 10). Then, if the applicant also wishes to be considered for the Sjolunden Camp award from the Golden Lodge program, he/she should send a copy of the application to: Bertil Winther P. O. Box 3890 Redondo Beach, CA